Just Like a Woman
"Just Like a Woman" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde. The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. Dylan allegedly wrote it on Thanksgiving Day in 1965, though some biographers doubt this, concluding that he most likely improvised the lyrics in the studio. Dylan recorded the song at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee in March 1966. The song has been criticized by some for sexism or misogyny in its lyrics, and has received a mixed critical reaction. Some critics have suggested that the song was inspired by Edie Sedgwick, while other consider that it refers to Dylan's relationship with fellow folk singer Joan Baez. Retrospectively, the song has received renewed praise, and in 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Dylan's version at number 232 in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. A shorter edit was released as a single in the United States during August 1966 and peaked at number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single also reached 8th place in the Australian charts, 12th place on the Belgium Ultratop Wallonia listing, 30th in the Dutch Top 40, and 38th on the RPM listing in Canada.
Though a relative success in the United States, Dylan's recording of "Just Like a Woman" was not issued as a single in the United Kingdom. However, British beat group Manfred Mann recorded a version of the song in June 1966 for their album As Is, during their first recording session together with producer Shel Talmy. In July, it became Manfred Mann's first single to be released through Fontana Records. It was a hit in several European countries, reaching number 10 in the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in Sweden. The song received positive reviews from critics, several of whom highlighted Mike d'Abo's vocal performance.
Background and recording
Bob Dylan released his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home in March 1965, followed by Highway 61 Revisited in August of that year. In October, he began recording sessions for this next album Blonde on Blonde. After several sessions in New York, the recording was relocated to Nashville following a suggestion by Dylan's producer Bob Johnston. Two musicians from the New York sessions were retained; Dylan was accompanied by Al Kooper on his journey to Nashville and Robbie Robertson joined them there.The master take of "Just Like a Woman" was produced by Johnston and recorded at Columbia Studio A, Nashville, Tennessee on March 8, 1966. Seven complete takes, and multiple rehearsals and partial takes were recorded. Take 18, the last of the session, was used on the album, which was released on June 20, 1966.
The song features a lilting melody, backed by delicately picked nylon-string guitar and piano instrumentation, resulting in what Bill Janovitz wrote was arguably the most "radio-friendly" track on the album. The musicians backing Dylan on the track are Charlie McCoy, Joe South, and Wayne Moss on guitar, Henry Strzelecki on bass guitar, Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano, Kooper on organ, and Kenneth Buttrey on drums. Although Dylan's regular guitar sideman Robertson was present at the recording session, he did not play on the song.
The album version is 4 minutes and 53 seconds long. A single version, edited down to 2 minutes and 56 seconds, was released in the United States on August 18, 1966, and in other countries, not including the United Kingdom, in the same year. Musicologist Larry Starr noted that Dylan employed a traditional AABA structure in the song, and that, unusually for him, the bridge literally bridges over into the next section of the song: "Ain't it clear that – I just can't fit."
Composition and lyrical interpretation
In the album notes of his 1985 compilation Biograph, Dylan related that he wrote the lyrics of "Just Like a Woman" in Kansas City on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1965, while on tour. However, after listening to the recording session tapes of Dylan at work on the song in the Nashville studio, historian Sean Wilentz has written that he improvised the lyrics in the studio by singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish". Dylan was initially unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes". The improvisational spirit extends to the band attempting, in their fourth take, a "weird, double-time version", somewhere between Jamaican ska and Bo Diddley.Clinton Heylin has analyzed successive drafts of the song from the so-called Blonde On Blonde papers, documents that Heylin believes were either left behind by Dylan or stolen from his Nashville hotel room. The first draft has a complete first verse, a single couplet from the second verse, and another couplet from the third verse. There is no trace of the chorus of the song. In successive drafts, Dylan added sporadic lines to these verses, without ever writing out the chorus. This leads Heylin to speculate that Dylan was writing the words while Kooper played the tune over and over on the piano in the hotel room, and the chorus was a "last-minute formulation in the studio". Kooper has explained that he would play piano for Dylan in his hotel room, to aid the song-writing process, and then would teach the tunes to the studio musicians at the recording sessions.
Dylan's exploration of female wiles and feminine vulnerability was widely rumored—"not least by her acquaintances among Andy Warhol's Factory retinue"—to be about Edie Sedgwick. The reference to Baby's penchant for "fog, amphetamine and pearls" suggests Sedgwick or someone similar, according to Heylin. "Just Like a Woman" has also been rumored to have been written about Dylan's relationship with fellow folk singer Joan Baez. In particular, it has been suggested that the lines "Please don't let on that you knew me when/I was hungry and it was your world" may refer to the early days of their relationship, when Baez was more famous than Dylan. Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Examiner considered that the song was "achingly autobiographical".
The subject of the song is said by the narrator to have lost "ribbons and bows" from her hair. Timothy Hampton suggested that this references songs such as "Buttons and Bows" and "Scarlet Ribbons " that use the image as one of femininity, although "these traces of an earlier age of innocent song and wholesome girlhood are modernized when they are juxtaposed with the 'hip' images of amphetamines and 'fog'" in "Just Like a Woman".
Alleged sexism
The song, like others by Dylan, has been criticized for sexism or misogyny in its lyrics. Alan Rinzler, in his book Bob Dylan: The Illustrated Record, describes the song as "a devastating character assassination...the most sardonic, nastiest of all Dylan's putdowns of former lovers". In 1971, Marion Meade wrote in The New York Times that "there's no more complete catalogue of sexist slurs", and went on to note that in the song Dylan "defines women's natural traits as greed, hypocrisy, whining and hysteria". Dylan biographer Robert Shelton noted that "the title is a male platitude that justifiably angers women," although Shelton believed that "Dylan is ironically toying with that platitude".Countering allegations of misogyny, music critic Paul Williams, in his book Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Book One 1960–1973, pointed out that Dylan sings in an affectionate tone from beginning to end. He further comments on Dylan's singing by saying that "there's never a moment in the song, despite the little digs and the confessions of pain, when you can't hear the love in his voice". Williams also contends that a central theme of the song is the power that the woman described in the lyrics has over Dylan, as evidenced by the line "I was hungry and it was your world".
Janovitz, in his AllMusic review, noted that in the context of the song, Dylan "seems on the defensive... as if he has been accused of causing the woman's breakdown. But he takes some of the blame as well". Janovitz concluded by noting, "It is certainly not misogynist to look at a personal relationship from the point of view of one of those involved, be it man or woman. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Dylan has a disrespect for, much less an irrational hatred of, women in general." Similarly, literary critic Christopher Ricks asks, "could there ever be any challenging art about men and women where the accusation just didn't arise?" Moreover, Gill has argued that the key "delimitation" in the song is not between man and woman, but between woman and girl, so the issue is one "of maturity rather than gender".
Critical reception
David F. Wagner, in The Post-Crescent, found "Just Like a Woman" to be a "tender, melodic ballad with punch", that he felt would be the most-covered track from the album. The critic for the Runcorn Weekly News preferred Dylan's original to the cover by Manfred Mann, and wrote that "it has more meaning when Dylan sings it". The Asbury Park Press columnist Don Lass described the song as "an evocative, lyrical, almost painful love song". A Billboard reviewer considered Dylan in "top-form with this much recorded bluesy ballad". A staff writer for Cash Box described the song as "a slow-shufflin' laconic ode which underscores just how much men need ". The staff writer for Record World believed that Dylan went after a more relaxed "musical background than usual on this ditty", calling the lyrics "perceptive".The Sun-Heralds reviewer dismissed what they referred to as the "pop songs" on Blonde on Blonde, including "Just Like a Woman": "the fancy words are inclined to hide the fact that there is nothing there at all". Craig McGregor of The Sydney Morning Herald found the song "overly sentimental". "The Arizona Republic reviewer Troy Irvine described the single release version as "a bright mover with good folk appeal".
Retrospectively, critic Michael Gray likewise called the song "uncomfortably sentimental. The chorus is trite and coy and the verses aren't strong enough to compensate." Gray highlights the lines "...she aches just like a woman/But she breaks just like a little girl", commenting that "What parades as reflective wisdom... is really maudlin platitude". He did, however, praise the middle eight due to Dylan's delivery of the words. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Dylan's version of the song at number 232 in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2013, Jim Beviglia rated it as the 17th-best of Dylan's songs, and praised the instrumental performances as "just about perfect a studio recording".